Life with identical twins

Our final day was at Epcot. Because we knew we wanted to try to stay until the fireworks, I didn’t schedule our first Fast Pass until 11:10am. Laying in bed that morning, I had to give myself a little pep talk. My hips were hurting from standing so much the night before at the fireworks, and I was not looking forward to another long day of walking. Advil and Starbucks at the park got me through! We took our time around the house in the morning and got to the park about 11:30. All of the rides are near the front of the park, so I knew we’d have plenty of time to get to Test Track. The wait time for Test Track was 60 minutes, so I definitely recommend using a Fast Pass! (Mission Space never had a wait time over 20 minutes).

So Test Track. All I knew was that you designed a car, and then it was a simulator? My dad kept asking if this was really a ride. Once we saw the sign that said it was a turbulent ride, we knew. The girls had a blast designing their cars, but I had no idea what they would think of the ride. You get into a real car, and then it simulates different road conditions. We were indoors at first, but then it started going really fast and the next thing I knew we were outside banking a corner. Everyone loved it!

Caden really, REALLY wanted to do Mission Space so she could be the commander of the spaceship. We went with the non-spinny version of the ride which was perfect. Delaney got a little nervous before we went in, but once we were inside she was fine. I got a little nervous once we got inside, but once the simulation started I was fine (although sweaty). This was super fun as well! Loved it.

Our second Fast Pass was for Spaceship Earth. The great thing about Epcot was that we hadn’t been there in 20 years? So everything was new. The journey through history was maybe a little boring, but the girls loved at the end when they got to see what their future would look like.

My mom is a huge gardener, and when we found these we all went nuts! Can you believe we were there one week before their big garden show??

We had dinner reservations for 6:15 in Mexico, which is the last country in the World Showcase. We headed to Canada about 3:00, which was perfect timing. A friend had told me that Epcot has little crafty things for kids in each country, so we found the Kidcot spot in Canada (why oh why do they hide them?) and the girls colored their little bears. We hit the Kidcot spot in each country and the girls LOVED this little activity. It was definitely worthwhile to hunt these down.

Around this time I was starving, so we hightailed it to the UK so we could grab a drink and some food. We absolutely should have eaten outside of the World Showcase. Once you’re in there it’s mostly sit down restaurants, and everything was full. We ended up getting fish and chips from a little booth. The guy told me I could have the fries, but they made me sick. At that point, I had to eat and all of my snacks were gone so I took all of my pills and hoped for the best. The pear cider I drank eased my pain though.

I was super fascinated with the topiary characters in each country!

Clearly.

We started in Canada at 3:00 and had to skip Norway to get to Mexico for our 6:15 reservations. If you want to drink your way around the world, you definitely need to leave yourself some time. We shopped in China (Caden loves pandas) and Japan (so many cool things to buy!), and hit the candy store in Germany.

As we sat down for dinner my mom and I looked at each other and knew we weren’t staying for the 9:00pm fireworks. We’d had a great day, the fireworks the night before were amazing, there was no reason to push it. Dinner was fabulous! I had done my research, and Mexico labels the gluten free and dairy free items which was so nice.

Caden had found a souvenir in China, but Delaney still had money to spend. She really, really wanted us to go back to China to shop some more, but I really just wanted to head out at that point. I offered her $10 to do her shopping in Mexico, and the deal was done. They both found cute jewelry boxes and were very happy with their purchases.

Epcot was the perfect ending to our trip. We definitely could have spent more time there! I loved that it was almost like two parks, with the rides up front and the World Showcase in the back. Total steps for the day – 14,826.

disclaimer – it was super sunny out that day and it doesn’t seem to matter what I do to edit my pictures, they are all coming out green. Sorry!

Just as I was pulling my weekend pictures off my phone, the battery died! It died doing the same thing when we came back from Florida, so I have a feeling a trip to the camera store is in my near future. While it charges, we will head back to Disney.

Wednesday was our off day with no parks planned. This day was key. By this point, we were all pretty tired. My brother and his family headed to Cocoa Beach, while the rest of us stayed back at the house. It rained in the morning, so we slept in, read books, and played foosball. Once the sun came out we headed to Downtown Disney. I loved it! Great shopping, and it was super fun to walk around. If you are gluten free or vegan, head straight for Erin McKenna’s bakery and buy as much as you can! I’m still thinking about that cupcake. We spent the rest of the day swimming in the pool, throwing steaks on the grill so we could just hang at home.

Thursday morning we headed out bright and early to Magic Kingdom, while my brother and his family headed to the airport to head back. Since our group was now just five people, I was able to get Fast Passes for the Seven Dwarves Mine Train (this is easily the hottest ride ticket. I saw the wait time get to 170 minutes one day). The rain storm on Wednesday ushered in a cold front and it was chilly! We knew it was going to be colder and thought we packed for it, but once we got to the park we realized our thin sweatshirts were not going to cut it. We bought sweatshirts to layer over our other clothes for everyone and thank goodness we did! We wore them most of Thursday and Friday, without them we likely would have been pretty miserable.

So, we did the mine train right away. I liked it, the girls hated it. That said, it’s fairly tame. After that my dad and I headed to Space Mountain. He didn’t get a chance to go on it when we were there on Sunday and since the wait time was 10 minutes, we figured it was the perfect time. Tomorrowland was empty! The girls and my mom did the Buzz Lightyear ride twice since there was no line! We joined them and rode it one more time, since I needed to redeem my awful first score.

The girls really wanted to get some autographs this time around, so we waited for Alice and the Mad Hatter. It was about a 20 minute wait, and while they loved it, they both agreed they’d rather ride the rides.

Since we were right next door, we went to the Starlight Cosmic Ray’s cafe for lunch. I was able to get a cheeseburger with a gluten free bun AND fries! I can never eat the fries because they’re always cross contaminated, but she assured me I would be good. They were amazing.

Caden requested that we go on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride again, and I really wanted a Dole Whip float, so we headed back that way. While cool, it was a beautiful day! So we stopped and took some pictures.

In case you love the Dole Whip as well, we all agreed that plain is where it’s at. No one loved the float.

I waited way too long to write this, so I don’t completely remember, but I think we headed back to the house at this point? Our goal was to leave around 2:00, in order to get a few hour break in, and come back round 5:30pm.

At some point during the day I switched out last Fast Pass to the Tinkerbell meet and greet. This was a clutch decision. We walked right in! And she was amazing. Perfect voice, super sweet, chatted the girls up, I loved it. Totally magical.

Because the park opened at 8am, the electric parade was at 7:00 and fireworks were at 8:00. Thank goodness. We thought we had a good spot for the parade, but a park worker told us to head to Liberty Square. It was more crowded than we thought it would be, but we did get front row spots so it was perfect. The girls were able to sit on the ground and everyone around us was nice and not pushy.

After the parade we booked it to get in front of the castle. I LOVED the Celebrate the Magic show before the fireworks! What maybe killed me a little was holding Caden for that show. It’s only 15 minutes, but I could really feel all that standing and holding the next day. The fireworks were also amazing, and I’m glad we were able to come back for them.

Animal Kingdom! This is one of my favorite parks. As we walked into the main area of the park we had to stop and get some pictures in front of the Tree of Life. Sidenote, last time we were at Disney, PhotoPass photographers were everywhere. It was super easy to have them take your picture. This time around? Only saw them in a few places, and there was always a line. Not a fan.

We made our way into Dino Land to hit those rides first. The kids did this ride first, then we went on Primeval Whirl. It looked like an easy ride, but they really whipped you around those corners!

After wandering around a bit, we headed to Expedition Everest for our first Fast Pass. I love this roller coaster. You are going along all easy and you think it’s nothing! Easy peasy. And then the tracks look like they were ripped apart and you remember YES! We’re going backwards! Might have been my favorite roller coaster of the trip!

It was the perfect day for the Kali River Rapids ride, except it’s closed. We watched the monkeys for a bit, then wandered along the trails. Caden loves maps, so we let her be the navigator. They do such a great job with the variety of animals that they had. Even the birds were beautiful and birds I hadn’t seen anywhere else.

This picture really sets the tone for Caden for the day. It was our third park, and she was tired. I felt about the same at this point, so we found a place to have lunch and sit down for a bit. Animal Kingdom gets the highest scores for food at any of the parks. I had plenty of gluten free options, everyone else loved their food, and there was plenty of shaded tables to sit at.

Right as we got into our safari vehicle it started raining. Pouring down rain! It was perfect timing since those vehicles have roofs. Our driver said the rain might even make for better animal watching. Obviously I have to include a picture of the giraffes. There were so many, and they were so close to the truck, and they are so beautiful!

And then, the elephants. My other favorite. The kids were beyond thrilled!

After the safari we hiked along another trail. This one had bats (I skipped), hippos (under water so cool!) and a gorilla. The gorilla was so cool and so chill. I swear he posed for us.

Kristina had been seeing a train that took people behind the scenes of the park, so we hopped on that as our last thing. Luckily, it took us to Rafiki’s Planet Watch which is where Delaney wanted to go. They talked a lot about wildlife conservation, and had goats for the girls to brush.

As we were taking the train back both of my girls had meltdowns. They were both exhausted (I was too, it had been a long three days at that point). Delaney was mad at me because I had said we would circle back to these carnival games in Dino Land if we had time (which we didn’t). I ended up carrying Caden out of the park. From the look on her face I knew she was done and luckily, she doesn’t weigh much.

First things first. Both girls had zero cavities! This has never happened in our dental career! Also, we caucused. We’ve talked a lot about the candidates so I really wanted to the girls to be a part of the entire process.

Back to Disney!

We were there right at park opening again. We walked down the main street to get our bearings, then separated out. Roller coaster riders to the Rock ‘n Roller coaster, everyone else to the bakery. I knew going in this roller coaster was crazy, but I was still unprepared for it. The speed that you take off with immediately knocked the wind out of me and I got a little nervous. After a few deep breaths I started to enjoy it but oof, not sure I could do that one more than once. Once Samantha and my dad did the Tower of Terror, we met up with everyone for our Fast Pass at Star Tours. I had only a vague idea of what this ride was, which was perfect. It was so amazing! When they said they were searching for a rebel spy, they showed my mom’s picture! I loved it, although I have a feeling if you went on it again it wouldn’t be as much fun. Afterwards, we watched a bit of the Jedi Training before moving on.

The thing I like about Hollywood Studios is that it’s a smaller park, so you feel like you have time to do things like let the kids get their faces painted.

And take lots of family pictures.

We had a little time to kill before our Toy Story Fast Passes, so we wandered through the Walt Disney museum. I am so fascinated by him! It’s really amazing to see someone with so much creativity, and so much vision.

Since we had done the Buzz Lightyear ride the day before, everyone knew what to expect from the Toy Story ride. I wanted to make it into some sort of competition for highest score, but we all knew my brother would win so instead we decided that the adult with the lowest score had to buy drinks. My mom lost – womp womp. That ride is still top of my list for non roller coaster rides. I love it!

Since we’d done the rides at this point, we split up. Kristina and I took the kids to the Under the Sea show, and my parents and brother went on the great movie ride. Since the show was only 15 minutes long, we knew we had enough time to meet Chewbacca! He was awesome! Hugged everyone, and took tons of pictures with us. Definite highlight.

The last thing on our list to do was the Beauty and the Beast show. So well done! There are some amazing performers at Disney that’s for sure.

We left the park about 4:00 or so? Which gave us enough time to hit the pool and hot tub for a bit before heading out for dinner. There were a lot of really great restaurants near the house which worked out perfectly for our evenings.

Official step count – 11,273.

Tomorrow will be a break in our regularly scheduled Disney posts for BIRTHDAY FUN. I cannot believe I have eight-year-olds.

Before we dive in, let’s cover some logistical things first. While you could probably wing it at Disney, they have made it increasingly difficult to do that. Advanced dining reservations (sit down restaurants, there are still plenty of counter service restaurants) need to be booked 180 days out from your trip, and Fast Passes are booked out 60 days if you’re on property, or 30 days if not. We chose to only make a dining reservation for our Epcot evening, since I just didn’t know where we would be at any given time. As far as Fast Passes go, I like the new system. Basically, you can book 3 fast passes each day, and you can do so on your phone or the website. The new system allowed them to do fast passes for a lot of attractions that didn’t previously offer them, as well as character meet and greets. I didn’t love that you have to go to a fast pass kiosk to book them after you use your initial three, since the kiosks were difficult to find.

Also, I had touring plans for each park from the guide book I bought, but since our fast passes didn’t line up with their recommendations, those touring plans didn’t work for us. I used them as reference to see what we hadn’t hit yet, but we didn’t even attempt to follow them. Last time we were there they were just starting to publish wait times on their app, now they are posted at each ride as well which is really helpful.

We are an early rising family, so were up and out the door hoping to make it to Magic Kingdom in time for the opening show. But, the whole park, walk, take the monorail, get in the park deal took longer than expected and we got to the park about 15 minutes after they opened. Even though it was cool when we left the house, by the time we got to the park it had warmed up enough that we were able to just go in short sleeves! The plan was to head home in the middle of the day for a rest, then come back in the evening for the parade and fireworks.

I had hoped we could meet a few characters at the front of the park, but every character we saw had a huge line (easily a 20 minute wait or more). Luckily my kids weren’t character focused, but if that is what you want to do, be prepared to skip the rides and just wait in line over and over. I would recommend doing Fast Passes for anyone you really want to meet.

Our first fast pass was for the Peter Pan ride. The girls loved it! Super glad I fast pass’d this one since the wait time quickly climbed to 60 minutes. We tried to go on it again later, but the wait was too long. We wandered around a bit and hit It’s a Small World and the tea cups. Loved both! After we headed to the Buzz Lightyear ride which was our next Fast Pass. LOVED IT!

We had packed apples, apple sauce, protein bars (for me), and pb&j sandwiches hoping to dole those out to hungry kids in case meals weren’t at normal times. Everyone kind of filled up on these though, and we ended up snacking our way through most of the day. This worked for everyone else, but not for me. I assumed we’d still sit down for meals, but when there is so much to see and do, it was hard to take a break. My protein bars did not get me far and at some point every day I neared meltdown hangry status and demanded protein (hopefully nicely?). Were I to do something like this again, I would hard boil eggs and cut up rotisserie chicken and pack that as my snack food. It would have made things much easier. (Unfortunately I didn’t think of this until the end of the week.)

Anyway, parade time! We happened upon this parade as we were heading over to Adventure Land.

Jungle cruise! This is such an old school ride. Our ‘tour guide’ was hilarious and totally made the ride fun. After the kids went on the Aladdin ride and my mom and I hit the Dole Whip stand. Mmmm, dole whip. Thank goodness for dairy free treats! It was perfect since it was starting to get really hot at this point.

My time frames are a little shaky, but I think this was when we separated a bit and everyone found lunch. It was close to 3:00 by this point, and there was still a lot we wanted to see. If we had left at this point, we wouldn’t have gotten back to the park until 7:00pm, and then it would have essentially just been time for a ride or two and then the parade and fireworks. We made the decision to try to push through and stay all day.

Swiss Family treehouse! This picture was either right before or right after Delaney (shockingly) tripped and skinned her knee really badly. Luckily I had packed a full first aid kit in my backpack, so we were able to bandage her up quickly.

We wandered around a bit trying to decide our next move. At this point all of the rides had long wait times, and no one was really in the mood to wait. We didn’t have dinner reservations, and it was becoming clear that it was going to be difficult to make it all day. The roller coaster riders really wanted to hit Space Mountain (we had ridden Splash Mountain earlier), but our Fast Pass wasn’t until 7:00. We decided to just go stand by. The kids headed to the Dumbo ride with the grandparents, and we all met up after.

My parents gave the kids lanyards for Valentines to keep their money in at the park (you can see them in the first pic). As we were walking from the tea cups to Tomorrowland, Delaney realized that her money pocket was gone. It of course had all of her money in it. I retraced our steps (at a run), but it was already gone. She was crushed. CRUSHED. I didn’t want it to ruin her trip, so I told her we would work something out. As we were leaving Kristina suggested that I check lost and found. That idea hadn’t even occurred to me! Luckily the Lost and Found was in the building right next to where we were at the time, so Delaney and I headed inside to see if they had it. My jaw hit the floor when the woman came out of the back room with it! I seriously could not believe that someone had turned it in. Granted, they took $20 before they turned it in, but still, Delaney got most of her money back.

Leaving early was a good call. We were all worn out by this point, and the kids just wanted to get back to the pool and hot tub. Total steps for the day (per my phone which is super accurate I’m sure) – 16,327.

Apologies! I didn’t mean to not post a thing last week! I had thought I’d post a pic here and there from my phone but you know how it goes. Anyway, we’re back! I’m still a little exhausted and also still going through the photos, so before we get into the nitty gritty of each day, here are the highlights of our Disney trip.

My parents rented a three bedroom house just a few miles from the parks for us to stay at. I love staying in a house! It allowed us to eat breakfast at home every morning, and prep and pack lots of snacks each day. With all of my food issues, this is huge. I don’t mind cooking, and knowing that I have food that I can eat is worth it for me. Having our own pool was pretty amazing too.

We went on this trip with my parents, my brother and sister-in-law and their two youngest kids. The cousins had so much fun together! They played together a ton in the pool, and hit the rides together. I loved having a few other roller coaster riders! My niece Samantha LOVES the big rides so we hit everything! Although she had to go on the Tower of Terror with my dad, my brother and I opted out of that one.

The first few days it was sunny and 80 and beautiful! Gorgeous park weather. Not too hot, not too cool.

Hollywood Studios. We rocked our Star Wars gear and hit all of the attractions! Star Tours was definitely a favorite. We even met Chewbacca! The girls had money of their own to spend on souvenirs, and they picked out Star Wars everything. I am not big on the princesses, so this made me very happy.

When we took the girls to Disney when they were three, we skipped Epcot (wisely so). We had zero idea what to expect this time around and were pleasantly surprised! The weather took a definite turn for the cooler by this point, so we did lots of layers and peeled things off and put them back on as needed. We had a few hours in the afternoon of perfect weather and made sure to soak it up.

Tomorrow, Magic Kingdom day 1!

Side note. The girls were born in a year with a leap day, and every year I think about how I begged my perinatologist to please not let me deliver on February 29. She kept her promise!

I love to photograph Caden. She really knows how to turn it on for the camera. And honestly, this has been proven in our professional photo shoots as well. I have a million pictures of Delaney’s cheesey grin (she’s a happy girl! what can she say), but I have Caden giving every expression under the sun.

These are all from our week in Orlando (obviously, hello sunshine!). Thank goodness for that week or I would have zero photography mojo left. Winter and the lack of natural light has sucked. I’m ready for it to be over.

I’m exhausted so this one may be short. Suffice it to say, the girls had a fabulous birthday!

By this point we had realized that while the girls wouldn’t eat breakfast in the room, they would eat at the park. So while everyone else hit the cafe, I ran to Toy Story to get us Fast Passes. The park opened at 9am, I got there at 9:22am and already our FP return time was 1:15. Yowza. Also, the Disney stageshow that has the Disney tv characters in it was not playing. They’re revamping it to run in a different theater and of course, that will be ready in March. Plans foiled again!

After breakfast we hit the Little Mermaid show. Cute. A little wet and a little frightening for the girls. Next up … characters I think?

Little Einsteins is BIG in our house.

Handy Manny drives me bonkers, but the character was the sweetest!

We hit the Muppets 3D movie and then had lunch at the Commissary. After lunch we hit up a few more characters (short lines!) and then went to the Toy Story ride. I was the only one who knew what was coming which was kind of fun. I rode with Delaney. She could pull the rope to fire at the targets, but couldn’t aim well. If I aimed, she would fire so that’s what we did. She LOVED when the car jerked and whooshed around to the next screen. (The next day when we talked about riding more rides she said “Mama! We go pow! pow! pow! pow!”) After this ride, we were pretty much done. Everyone was tired and there wasn’t much else to do here. We skipped our evening dinner reservations and just went to the Boardwalk to eat. It was meltdown city, so I was glad to at least be close to home. Everyone was beyond overtired by this point, adults included.

Saturday was our pool day! And wow does the Swan have gorgeous pools. Stephanie, Carey, and their trio met up with us to hang out for the morning and it was perfect weather! Our twins are only four weeks apart, and it’s been great to compare notes over the last three years. Meeting them in person made me wish we all lived closer together!

My girls were swimming fiends! They loved it! So much so that I think after this gymnastics class ends, we’ll switch to swimming lessons. I’m super excited for this summer. We’re planning on getting a season pass to the local pool and I foresee lots of time spent there!

Remember how I was all excited about the Lands End suits? Well, they weren’t getting the best reviews online so I hit up Old Navy instead. I bought the same suit three times so that we were covered for bottoms and tops that fit everyone, and I brought the extra top along since I wasn’t sure what sizes would work for the girls. Little Miss didn’t have a swimsuit so she wore the extra top. How cute is this?

Delaney, Little Miss, Caden

We were supposed to head to Epcot for dinner that night, but the girls wanted rides so we overruled my mom and headed back to Magic Kingdom. We caught the street parade one more time, hit the rides we missed, saw the fireworks again, and of course got caught in the throng of people leaving. Just as we were about to leave the park I panicked. Did we have all of the souvenirs we wanted? We ran into the store and bought two picture frames, a shirt for Laney, and two bracelets for the girls. It was a really late night, but so worth it!

We love going to the zoo, so I was super excited for our day at Animal Kingdom. The guide book said to head straight for the safari. The planning site said that everyone else heads for the safari, so grab a fast pass for it and head the other way to Dinoland. So that’s what we did. I went to Africa and grabbed fast passes while the family rode rides in Dinoland.

The girls were tired and whiny, so I felt a little bad as I walked over the bridge into Africa. It was a gorgeous morning. Still a little cool, not very many people out yet, and I could hear drums. I felt completely transported into another world. It was amazing, and I savored the moment.

I met up with everyone else in Dinoland and we headed out of there since there wasn’t much to do. Since the wait time was only 10 minutes for Expedition Everest, my dad and I headed there while my mom took the girls to look at the monkeys next door. Everest was amazing! I wish we could have ridden it again later in the day, but the wait time got long quickly.

We headed over to Africa, with a little break to do some drumming.

The safari was amazing! It was so hard to get decent pictures though. Either someone’s hat or elbow was in the shot, or it was blurry because we were always moving.

After lunch we went to the Festival of the Lion King. We had perfect timing as we walked in just was the show was about to start. What an amazing show! I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t a broadway show/ cirque du soleil, but that’s what we got. The girls were enthralled and everyone loved, loved, loved it. It was exactly the break we needed.

Right outside the show is Camp Minnie/Mickey. We immediately got in line to see Goofy, but as we neared Goofy both girls bailed. Caden wanted out completely, but Delaney agreed to go see Minnie.

Delaney loved the characters. Loved them. And she looked so grown up handing over her autograph book. After the initial rush, we noticed there really weren’t lines anymore, so we bopped from character to character.

We hit them all and then replenished our energy with some ice cream and funnel cake, then headed back to the hotel for a nap. Dinner that night was at the Captains Grille at the Yacht Club. Amazing food! I highly recommend it. Plus, it was nice to just walk to dinner and not have to get on a bus and navigate crowds to eat.

The one really nice thing about this vacation versus others we’ve taken is the sleeping arrangements. For once, I wasn’t worried at all about them. We got a room with two queen beds. Caden slept in one, Delaney and I in the other. If Caden woke up, I just slid in bed with her. I thought I’d venture out in the evenings once the girls were asleep, but we never made it to bed before 8:30, and I generally ended up just going to bed with them. It was nice to get some quality sleep.

We did a fair amount of planning for this trip. My mom bought me the Fodor’s guide to Disney for Christmas which was great. It had so much information and it was really well organized. We also used a planning site that gives insider tips and has strategies for each park, as well as which days to go to which park. This site was full of great information, but it was barely navigable and as someone who designs and builds websites for a living, it was like nails on a chalkboard for me to be on this site (Sorry Sheila!). Prior to the trip we read through everything, and then mapped out a route that I wrote down on a piece of paper that I could take to the park that day. The night before, I reread the Fodor’s section for that park. Once we got to the park though, it was all about the Disney wait time app I had downloaded. It was so nice to be able to look at that and know that the tea cups were only a five minute wait so that’s where we should head.

Our plan was to get to the park before it opened. This was key. I thought it might be an issue getting up, but the girls were up by 7:00am and ready to go. We arrived at Magic Kingdom just as they were starting to sing and dance. What a way to start our day! I spent the requisite $30 to purchase two autograph books and two pens and we headed off to meet Pluto in the square. After Pluto we headed down Main Street to see Cinderella’s Castle. They look thrilled to be there don’t they?

The first ride up was Dumbo. We waited 20 minutes to ride it which was brutal. Definitely the longest we waited for a ride. But, the girls loved it! And it was nice to get an aerial view of things.

It was at this point that we realized Toontown was gone and that we had to rejigger our plan for the rest of the day. One ride was down and the other was way too long of a wait, so we headed to the tea cups. She may be tiny, but she is strong and she had that tea cup spinning!

We stopped for lunch in Frontierland and had hoped to possibly hit Splash Mountain before the lines were too long, but we were too late. Instead we did the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and then headed back to the hotel because everyone was beat. The girls took an hour nap which wasn’t nearly long enough, and my mom and I got drinks by the pool. Now that we were refreshed, we headed back to Magic Kingdom for dinner and the electric nighttime parade. We lucked into perfect spots to watch the parade. Delaney was super into it and right at the rope, Caden got scared at the last second and needed my dad to hold her.

My dad really wanted to drive the cars in Tomorrowland, so after the parade we headed over there. I wasn’t sure how into this ride the girls would be, but they got super excited watching the cars race around the track. At the last second, Delaney wanted to ride with Grammy so I was at the front of the pack by myself. Thank goodness! Because what I didn’t learn until we were all getting out of the cars was that my parents let the girls drive! They did the gas, but the girls drove the cars and apparently they were all over the place. It was by far their favorite ride of the day and they talked about it all week.